Area codes 902 and 782


Area codes 902 and 782 are the telephone area codes in the Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. Area code 902 designates one of the 86 original numbering plan areas established in the North American Numbering Plan in October 1947.
The number plan area 902 originally consisted of three Maritime provinces, with Newfoundland added shortly after it joined Canada in 1949. New Brunswick, along with Newfoundland, was assigned area code 506 in 1955. Newfoundland subsequently received a distinct area code, 709, in early 1962.
Area code 782 is an overlay area code for the same numbering plan area, introduced in August 2014, to relieve number exhaustion of 902.
The incumbent local exchange carrier in the 902/782 area is Bell Aliant, which was produced from a merger that included Island Telecom Inc., Maritime Telephone and Telegraph, New Brunswick Tel and NewTel Communications.

Coverage area

The number plan area 902/782 is unusual in that it spans two entire provinces, much like area code 867 is shared by the three Canadian territories: Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and Yukon. This practice is unique to Canada, although was practiced also in the Caribbean.

Overlay

Canada still uses an inefficient scheme for allocating telephone numbers in which every competing carrier is allocated blocks of 10,000 numbers–corresponding to a single three-digit prefix–in every rate centre in which it offers new service and every local interconnect region in which it intends to port existing numbers. While most rate centres do not need nearly that many numbers, number pooling is not used as a relief measure; it is not possible to reallocate a number once it has been assigned to a carrier and rate centre. Additionally, the rate centres are typically not amalgamated when the corresponding municipalities disappear. As a result, it is not uncommon for a town like Yarmouth, Nova Scotia to be allocated 150,000 numbers on various carriers.
While only 1.06 million people reside in numbering plan area 902, which provides 7.8 million possible seven-digit telephone numbers, the area code was projected to be exhausted by 2015. The exhaustion may have been staved off had it been possible to reallocate numbers from the provinces' smaller rate centres to Halifax, Sydney and Charlottetown.
In October 2012, the relief area code 782 was announced, which overlays the entire 902 area. Ten-digit dialing was mandatory in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island as of November 30, 2014. The decision to implement a bi-provincial overlay may have been unusual, but was made to spare residents in rural areas of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island the burden of having to change numbers. As a result, the 782 area code was introduced on August 23, 2014. A recorded message reminding callers that 10-digit dialling would become mandatory on November 30 was activated on August 23. Exchanges in 782 were made available to telephone service providers on May 30, 2014, with numbers being assigned to customers once 10-digit dialing was activated.

Served communities

Nova Scotia

Premium services in the numbering plan area are provided with central office code 976: 1-902/782-976-xxxx.